BFI Giving Peter Sellar’s The Battle Of The Sexes An April Release!
Comedy genius Peter Sellers gives one of his greatest performances in this famously subtle, sharp-edged satire on sexual politics in the 1950s workplace, directed by Ealing Studios legend Charles Crichton (The Lavender Hill Mob, A Fish Called Wanda). On 20 April 2020 the BFI releases The Battle of the Sexes on Blu-ray/DVD in a Dual Format Edition with simultaneous release on BFI Player, iTunes and Amazon. A variety of special features include a series of Egg Marketing Board adverts starring Tony Hancock and Constance Cummings, A Ghost of a Chance – a Children’s Film Foundation comedy feature with an all-star cast and films about Scotland from the BFI National Archive.
The sleepy staff of Macpherson’s traditional Scottish tweed firm get a rude awakening when young Macpherson (Robert Morley, Theatre of Blood) hires a feisty American efficiency expert Angela Barrows (Constance Cummings, Blithe Spirit). She advocates new-fangled horrors like automation and – ghastliest of all – ‘synthetic fibre’. Can nothing stop her? Noting, perhaps, but meek accountant Mr Martin (Peter Sellers). Beneath that placid surface, still waters run deep; to balance the books, he decides, he must erase the ‘error’…
To promote the release, BFI have released a new clip, check it out…
Special features
- Presented in High Definition and Standard Definition
- Hancock’s Hard Boiled Eggs: Sellers’ contemporary, the Lad from East Cheam himself, Tony Hancock, appears with The Battle of the Sexes’ Patricia Hayes in this cracking collection of 11 egg-cellent Egg Marketing Board adverts from 1966
- A Ghost of a Chance (1968, 50 mins): bonus feature-length fun for all the family as Sellers’ chum Graham Stark stars with Ronnie Barker, Patricia Hayes, Jimmy Edwards, Bernard Cribbins and Terry Scott in a corking Children’s Film Foundation comedy
- Images of Edinburgh in Archive Film: an atmospheric selection of rarely-seen short films capturing Scotland’s capital in the first half of the twentieth century, from the vaults of the BFI National Archive
- Woolly Wonders: evocative 1940s archive films of traditional Scottish clothmaking, shot in colour by the great Jack Cardiff
- Image gallery
- Illustrated booklet ***first pressing only*** with an essay by the BFI’s Vic Pratt; biographies of Charles Crichton, Constance Cummings, Robert Morley and James Thurber by Kieron McCormack; notes on the special features and full film credits
The film also stars Robert Morley, Constance Cummings and Donald Pleasence, Charles Crichton directs.
The Battle of The Sexes will get an Blu-ray/DVD release on 20 April 2020 with simultaneous release on BFI Player, iTunes and Amazon.
Discover more from
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
About the Author
